Gentrification
]]Gentrification is a process of renovating deteriorated urban neighborhoods by means of the influx of more affluent residents. Gentrification shifts a neighborhood's racial/ethnic composition and average household income by developing new, more expensive housing, businesses, and improved resources, and real estate development can lead to lowered crime rates, increased attraction of business, redevelopment of warehouses and abandoned buildings into loft apartments, and improved material quality. However, gentrification can lead to the displacement of lower-income families and local businesss and a rise in property values and rental costs. Most gentrifiers are affluent professionals such as highly-educated women, adventurous artists, and newcoming gays. History White flight In the United States, white flight from the cities during the 1950s and 1960s led to formerly upper- or middle-class communities such as Yonkers and The Bronx in New York, Compton in California, and Newark in New Jersey becoming impoverished and crime-ridden cities. The rise of the suburbs, caused by the influx of returning World War II veterans in the late 1940s and early 1950s, led to many white residents leaving the cities, a process hastened by the process of "blockbusting", in which real estate agents encouraged whites to sell their homes at high prices rather than have their homes decrease in value due to the arrival of poorer African-American and Hispanic residents. Urban decay ]]The Great Migration of poor blacks from the American South into cities across the country to work as laborers led to the arrival of working-class blacks in several major cities. Their arrival in certain neighborhoods decreased property values, and many white residents sold their homes and flocked to the suburbs to live in comfort. Both white flight and the construction of highways over certain neighborhoods led to a decrease in property value, and these values were affordable to the new African-American workforce and to immigrants from Hispanic countries, primarily Puerto Rico. For example, Newark's white population decreased from 363,000 people in 1950 to 46,000 in 1967, and Newark had a black majority by 1966, a faster turnover than most northern cities had experienced. Southern blacks and Puerto Ricans moved to Newark to become industrial workers just as industrial jobs were decreasing sharply, and many of the migrants left poverty to find more poverty. The 1967 Newark riots destroyed the city's prosperity, and the white community left with the industrial jobs. in the 1970s]] New York City experienced a similar decline during the 1960s and 1970s, with most of the Italians leaving Harlem, the Jews leaving Brooklyn and The Bronx, and the Irish leaving Queens as the neighborhoods were overrun by an influx of poor African-American and Puerto Rican laborers. The construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway through the Bronx led to the destruction of swathes of buildings and the decline of the South Bronx, which became a Puerto Rican ghetto. During the 1970s, The Bronx and parts of Brooklyn were devastated by frequent arson attacks, with several buildings being boarded-up or reduced to vacant lots. Drugs, homelessness, poverty, and crime became rampant, and the saying "The Bronx is Burning" became popular in The Bronx during the late 1970s, while Bedford-Stuyvesant became known as "Bed-Stuy, do-or-die" due to skyrocketing crime and murder rates. New York City was devastated by white flight and urban decay, and even the famous district of Times Square became infected by porn shops and drug deals. Gentrification By the end of the 1980s, the urban areas of the United States were in their worst shape, exacerbated by the crack cocaine epidemic, the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus, and economic recession. However, the excess supply of deteriorated housing in central areas and the growth of the availability of professional jobs in the central business districts led to revived interest in urban areas among suburban whites and other professionals. The transition from the industrial to the post-industrial service economies created white-collar jobs and larger opportunities for women in the work force, increasing the demand for inner city residences near the central business district. After the central city abandonment of the 1950s, the city residences were cheap and available, triggering the gentrification of cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington DC. Gentrifiers came in many different forms, ranging from affluent upper-middle-class people to young artists and gays. During the 1960s, Greenwich Village in Manhattan evolved into a center of the artistic and gay communities, gentrifying the area. During the 1970s, The Castro district of San Francisco, previously a working-class community, became a gay village following the 1967 Summer of Love, leading to the city evolving into a center of gay culture. Harlem in New York also experienced revitalization due to the influx of artists, leading to the Hispanic barrio and the poor black housing projects decreasing in size as more affluent residents moved in. In Brooklyn, former waterfront warehouses, which had been abandoned during deindustrialization, were converted into "loft" apartments, with the rooms being cleared out and replaced with household objects. Soon, New York City became an expensive city to live in. The success of gentrification in New York was mirrored across the Hudson River in Hoboken (where the dockworkers' industrial city transitioned into a young people's city) and, to a lesser extent, in Jersey City, where the Downtown area and Exchange Place became booming business centers. Negative effects Gentrification is a controversial subject in urban areas, as the locals are at risk of being displaced due to high property values and rental costs. There have been anti-gentrification protests, which claim that gentrification is racist, as the gentrifiers are mostly Asian (especially Indian and Chinese) and white, while the local residents are mostly poor Hispanics or African-Americans. In East Harlem, the Hispanic community of El Barrio sought to prevent gentrification from destroying the barrio culture, which included street art, local businesses, and a strongly Dominican and Puerto Rican culture. Gentrification posed a threat to the culture which ethnic enclaves were home to, leading to many community activists opposing gentrification on the grounds of it destroying culture. Gentrification in the United States Los Angeles County Los Angeles was heavily affected by the deindustrialization of the 1950s and 1960s and the Great Migration. During World War II, Mexican immigration was encouraged, as local factories needed workers to support the war effort. In addition, many African-Americans arrived in the state, which had previously been mostly white or Mexican; the percentage of blacks in the state exponentially multiplied at unprecedented levels. After the deindustrialization of the city, ghettoes formed in Long Beach, Signal Hill, Compton, Venice, and other areas of the city. These ghettoes were often segregated, with the Mexicans living in ghettoes such as Florence, Signal Hill, East Los Angeles, and Lennox, and the blacks living in ghettoes such as Compton, Inglewood, Venice Beach, Watts, and MacArthur Park. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the crack cocaine epidemic led to the city rapidly declining, but gentrification occurred during the 2000s and 2010s as artists and celebrities moved into the city. MacArthur Park in 1992 vs. 2013]]MacArthur Park was once known as the "Champs-Elysees of Los Angeles" due to its beautiful park and its luxury hotels, but it declined during the 1950s and 1960s. When the manmade lake in the park was drained in 1973 and in 1975, hundreds of handguns and other firearms were found disposed of in the lake. The area became the heart of Ballas territory during the 1980s and 1990s, and, in 1992, the area was an epicenter of the gang wars between the Ballas and the Grove Street Families. The area was a predominantly African-American neighborhood for years, and gang members, drug dealers, and crack dens littered the area for several years. However, the neighborhood was changed by gentrification during the 2000s and 2010s, with middle-class people and hipsters moving into the area. By 2013, it was common to see hipsters drinking coffee and driving around in Mini Hatch convertibles, and many houses were rented out by Wolfs International Realty. The neighborhood had much lower crime rates than it had during the 1990s, owing to the hipster influx. East Los Angeles in 1992 and 2013]]East Los Angeles was a predominantly residential neighborhood during the 20th century, and it had a quintessential Mexican-American character. During the 1990s, the area had a very high crime rate, with prostitutes, gangsters, and drug dealers causing disturbances in the area. The Ballas took over the area from the Vagos during the early 1990s, but the Grove Street Families took over the neighborhood after much gang warfare in 1992. The area also came to have large Salvadoran and Guatemalan populations as the result of continued Latin American immigration, and it remained poor for years. The neighborhood, once dedicated to industry and hard labor, was changed by gentrification during the 21st century. Large factories were shut down, and the neighborhood was filled with rundown workshops, factories, and warehouses which were converted into garages or homes. Only the power plants and factories near the Port of Los Angeles continued operation into the 2010s, and the Arts District and neighborhoods close to MacArthur Park in the north became middle-class areas. However, as of 2013, many neighborhoods were still poor, and crime was rampant in the darker and more isolated areas of the neighborhood, especially the abandoned industrial warehouses. Glassell Park The Glassell Park neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles was a residential and working-class neighborhood for decades, having a large Mexican population. The mostly raised and steep district consisted mostly of small, single-family houses, apartments, small stores, a trailer park, and a high-rise building during the 1990s, and it had a high crime rate, as it was a stronghold for the Vagos gang. It was the site of gang warfare with the Grove Street Families in 1992, and it was common to see gangsters, prostitutes, and drug dealers walk the streets. By 2008, however, Glassell Park had changed drastically both demographically and economically. Its median yearly household income in 2008 was $50,098, an average figure for the city, meaning that it had risen above its violent ghetto status. The Los Angeles River revitalization project also helped the neighborhood, with the habitat being restored, the river being widened, wetlands being created, and access points and bike trails being created along the river. Category:Economics